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Show 355. insensitive and destructive behavior. Although there may be nothing wrong with partying in the Parks per se, Muir noted that the partiers tended to forget where they were, and soon fouled the wilderness as they had fouled their own cities. Why else do people leave beer cans on the trails and wine bottles in the meadows? Do they perhaps suppose that these constitute pastoral improvements? Now of course the Parks go to great pains to provide entertainment, in the hope that occupying the tourists* time will keep them out of trouble. A full social round keeps the tourist occupied, and keeps his mess localized. Power-games also came under his attack. The anthropocentric notion of conquest always seemed wrongheaded to Muir, particularly in regard to men standing on the summit of Half Dome; ". . .as well say a man is conquered when a fly lights on his head," he growled. I have always discouraged as much as possible every project for laddering South Dome, believing it would be a fine thing to keep this garden untrodden. Now the pines will be carved with the initials of Smith and Jones, and the gardens strewn with tin cans and bottles. . . . Even though he later made peace with the idea of a ladder on the Dome, he insisted that the view from the summit was less impressive than elsewhere, because the walls on both sides "seem comparatively low and shrunken," and the Dome itself, |